This chapter demonstrates that the New World wilderness had a romantic as well as a pragmatic appeal; as the Highland clans became tamed and their landscape commercialised, the call of the American ...
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This chapter demonstrates that the New World wilderness had a romantic as well as a pragmatic appeal; as the Highland clans became tamed and their landscape commercialised, the call of the American wild was heard in Scotland. Among those who responded were William Drummond Stewart, Charles Augustus Murray and James Carnegie, who all relished the potential for adventure, the opportunities for hunting, and the elemental challenge of encountering wild animals and wild people. The chapter discusses the self-mythologising accounts of their experiences by Stewart, Murray and Carnegie, and texts relating to more modest travellers, such as Isabella Bird who followed the frontier west and relished wilderness for its own sake, and for its wildlife and potential for solitude - the latter a theme explored more fully in the final chapter. David Douglas, botanist and plant collector in the Pacific northwest, represents another aspect of response to the ‘glorious world’ of the wilderness.Less

Glorious Independence

Jenni Calder

Published in print: 2013-05-31

This chapter demonstrates that the New World wilderness had a romantic as well as a pragmatic appeal; as the Highland clans became tamed and their landscape commercialised, the call of the American wild was heard in Scotland. Among those who responded were William Drummond Stewart, Charles Augustus Murray and James Carnegie, who all relished the potential for adventure, the opportunities for hunting, and the elemental challenge of encountering wild animals and wild people. The chapter discusses the self-mythologising accounts of their experiences by Stewart, Murray and Carnegie, and texts relating to more modest travellers, such as Isabella Bird who followed the frontier west and relished wilderness for its own sake, and for its wildlife and potential for solitude - the latter a theme explored more fully in the final chapter. David Douglas, botanist and plant collector in the Pacific northwest, represents another aspect of response to the ‘glorious world’ of the wilderness.